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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28865745">Holster is a Ghost</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/pertainstothesea/pseuds/pertainstothesea'>pertainstothesea</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Check Please! (Webcomic)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, F/F, Holster is a ghost and Jenny is alive, M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 06:02:45</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,508</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28865745</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/pertainstothesea/pseuds/pertainstothesea</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Holster navigates the struggles of being a ghost with the help of the ghost already in the Haus, Mandy. For the past few months, over the summer, things have been okay, but then all his teammates come back, along with some freshmen. Now he also has to deal with a crush that can't turn into anything and the torture of being in a place full of pie that he can't smell or taste.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Adam "Holster" Birkholtz/Justin "Ransom" Oluransi, Jenny/Mandy (Check Please!)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>117</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>82</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/YourPalYourBuddy/gifts">YourPalYourBuddy</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I need you to go into this fic letting go of the canon years/ages of everyone. I moved people around so the things I wanted to happen would make sense. If Bitty and Ransom are in the same year, things just make more sense for exposition reasons.  I will add more characters in as we go.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">“He’s cute,” Mandy said.</p><p class="p1">“Cute? He’s hotter than hell,” Adam said, staring at the newest (living) resident of the Haus. The guy had cheekbones so sharp they could cut glass and practically had an 8-pack.</p><p class="p1">“You’ll understand it when you’ve been dead longer,” Mandy said. “It’s like, totally weird to think that a guy who was born after I died is hot. Like, just grody, you feel? I could’ve been his mom’s age. But you’re definitely new enough to being a ghost that it’s fine.”</p><p class="p1">It still stung a little, being reminded that he was dead and stuck in the Haus forever. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever get used to it, but he had eternity to acclimate. Unless he’d be destroyed if the Haus was destroyed? Mandy didn’t like answering these questions. She was cool, though. Hanging out with her kind of reminded him of hanging out with his sisters. She didn’t let him get away with any bullshit, but she was cool about answering his questions about being a ghost. His guide to the other side.</p><p class="p1">Adam didn’t actually know what happened. He couldn’t remember dying. He couldn’t remember what day he died, or what he had been doing, or anything. No clue what unfinished business was keeping him here, either. It was all a mystery and he was, after less than a year of ghosthood, sick of it. He had a list.</p><p class="p1">Things ghosts can’t do that Adam wanted to do:</p><ul class="ul1">
<li class="li2">Turn on the TV</li>
<li class="li2">Tell the people who turned on the TV that 30 Rock is on, and they should change the channel so he can watch 30 Rock</li>
<li class="li2">Play hockey</li>
<li class="li2">Eat. Even the dining hall food was sounding tempting.</li>
<li class="li2">Get drunk</li>
<li class="li2">Flirt</li>
<li class="li2">Sleep</li>
<li class="li2">Get laid</li>
<li class="li2">Flirt with hot new hockey players</li>
<li class="li2">Sleep with hot new hockey players</li>
</ul><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p2">“The other one is cute,” Adam said, pointing at the other freshman, a short blond guy who was following Shitty around on the taddy tour. “But the first one? H-O-T, hot.”</p><p class="p2">Mandy snorted.</p><p class="p2">“Am I wrong?” Adam demanded. Mandy patted his arm kindly.</p><p class="p2">“Look, I get it. The living are still attractive, and the hardest part is not being seen at all. My girlfriend visited this place like ten years ago,” Mandy said. She pushed her dark hair behind her ear. “Well. We didn’t break up so it feels weird to call her my ex? But I guess death is an automatic breakup. Whatever. I would’ve given like, literally anything to talk to her. I would’ve given up my ghostly nail polish collection, even, to let her know I was there. And you know how much I love my polish.”</p><p class="p2">Adam glanced down at his own hands. Mandy had given him a Samwell crimson manicure, for some Welcome Week spirit. He still found it funny, to be a spirit trying to have school spirit. He wondered how long stuff like that would be funny.</p><p class="p2">“At least you got to have a girlfriend before you died,” he complained. “I just had a bunch of really unsuccessful hookups that should barely count as dates. Nobody on this team was a good wingman.”</p><p class="p2">“You were only on the team for a year, hun,” she said. “It’s totally normal to not date when you’re a freshman. I saw you studying like, all the time. You didn’t have time for that.”</p><p class="p2">That was the weird thing about Mandy. She’d been there, watching, for decades, seeing hockey teams rise and fall as new members came and seniors graduated. Sometimes she’d forget for just a second that someone had left a long time ago, but most of the time she was with it.</p><p class="p2">“Ugh, I know,” he said. “I’m just complaining to complain. I’m not gonna get an actual crush or anything.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>In which nicknames are discussed at length.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">“Jacky-boo, I will never change my nickname,” Shitty insisted. Jack sighed. “You need one, though. A real one. One that sticks.”</p><p class="p1">“Never,” Jack said, deadpan. “If you come up with one that sticks I’ll have to kill you.”</p><p class="p1">“Oluransi, what was your nickname on your high school team?” Lardo demanded.</p><p class="p1">“Ranser. But you can seriously just call me Justin, it’s fine,” Hot Freshman said. Adam sighed.</p><p class="p1">“So hot, such a bad nickname,” he said. Mandy nodded. She was redoing her nails for the third time today, switching from red to a light purple. Spectral polish didn’t have to dry.</p><p class="p1">“Ranser, Rans, um, oh! That’s it,” she said. “Ransom! Totally cool.”</p><p class="p1">Adam nodded. Literally anything would be better than Ranser, but that was actually objectively good. Mandy had an ear for this kind of thing.</p><p class="p1">“I hated my nickname,” he admitted. “It was just as unoriginal, but I couldn’t get anything else to stick. Not even Holtzy. They kept calling me Birker.” Mandy tilted her head.</p><p class="p1">“Birkholtz, Birkenstock, Bird-holtz, Free Bird, Holtz, Holster,” she said, rapid-fire. “Holster would’ve been the best one. Oh, and if he’d been on the team with you it would’ve been cute. Like the bank robbery words duo.”</p><p class="p1">Holster nodded, then floated straight up to the attic to scream into a pillow at how unfair it all was that he only got a good nickname when there was only one person in the universe who could ever use it. That was the worst part of death so far, in his opinion. You were stuck with your life as it had been, with no way to fix your regrets or achieve your goals. Nobody could even hear you scream in frustration, hear that you needed comfort or friendship.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Down in the kitchen, Justin jumped.</p><p class="p1">“What’s wrong?” Lardo asked.</p><p class="p1">“Didn’t you hear that?” Justin said, looking up toward the attic. “Someone screamed.”</p><p class="p1">Lardo frowned.</p><p class="p1">“Seriously,” Justin insisted. “I heard it, clear as day.”</p><p class="p1">“I believe that you believe you heard something,” Lardo said slowly. “Do you want me to come with you to check?”</p><p class="p1">Justin nodded. They walked up the stairs a bit faster than Justin would’ve honestly wanted them to. When they reached the top, he silently counted to three before slamming the attic door open.</p><p class="p1">Nothing. There was nobody up there. Not even a feral raccoon. His desk chair was where it had been neatly pushed in, his bed was still made up, the empty top bunk was still working as a tidy makeshift bookshelf, and the dresser drawers were all pushed all the way in.</p><p class="p1">“Probably the wind,” Lardo said.</p><p class="p1">“I swore I heard it,” Justin said, a little helplessly. The two turned around and headed back to the kitchen, where Bitty’s pie was waiting to fuel them through a full study session.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">From the bed, Holster was extremely confused. Why on earth had they come upstairs?</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Blond Freshman's Vlog</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Holster learns some valuable information from a certain freshman vlogger.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">“Stupid sexy Zimmermann,” Blond Freshman muttered in front of his video camera. Holster wasn’t totally sure what his name was. Biddy? Buddy? 90% of the time the team was saying his name through a mouth full of pie, or with an intense accent, so it was anyone’s guess. It was fun to watch him film these videos, though. Kind of felt like reading someone’s diary, but Holster rationalized that being dead had so few perks that he may as well eavesdrop as much as possible. Honestly, as soon as he could get strong enough to pick up books, he was gonna find a French-English dictionary and snoop through absolutely every page of Jack Zimmermann’s leather-bound journal. So far he couldn’t disagree with anything the freshman had said about Zimmermann. Great ass, check, pretty uptight about hockey, check, not allowed to play Settlers of Catan anymore, check.</p><p class="p1">“He hates me because I can’t take a check. Not my fault we only had no-contact in Georgia,” he said. “Shitty said something about Jack having a hockey player dad so there’s some pressure there, but I know something else is behind the massive stick up his ass.”</p><p class="p1">“Huh,” Holster said. Jack had been awkward and kind of bitchy before, but he didn’t think Jack had been <em>that</em> uptight in his first year as captain. The freshman couldn’t be <em>too</em> bad if he’d made it on the team to begin with.</p><p class="p1">“So I kept nagging Shitty about it, and eventually I had to tell him that I would absolutely not be giving him any more pie if he didn’t tell me what the hell is actually going on here,” Blondie said to his camera. More quietly, conspiratorially even, he leaned in close to the camera.</p><p class="p1">“Turns out, I shouldn’t have done that social media detox challenge vlog the week of this one tournament. There was an absolutely awful accident on the ice, you wouldn’t believe it, the least injured guy got out with a few less teeth and a broken hand, but the most injured guy was on our team, and, well, he didn’t get back up again. His name was Adam something, and apparently Jack totally blames himself since he was captain and that means that he’s supposed to psychically predict freak accidents? Lord knows that’s a tragic enough backstory to explain half of this attitude. There’s also apparently video of Jack having a full blown panic attack on the ice while the guy is being taken out, but y’all know I’m not looking that up. I’m nosy but I’m not that kind of nosy. I guess if I can’t take a check, he’s scared that I’ll be the next one to not get up again.” Blondie sighed. “And Lord, I wish that wasn’t such a sympathetic explanation. Now I can’t even bitch as much about having to wake up at four in the goddamn morning.”</p><p class="p1">He shook out his arms suddenly.</p><p class="p1">“Ugh, I’m gonna have to cut half of that out or I’ll get demonetized for swearing,” he said to himself. “Just start over and do the fucking recipes. That’s what they want. Save the mysterious accidents for the podcasters to talk about.” He said a couple of tongue twisters impressively quickly (rubber baby buggy bumpers, unique new york, the lips the teeth the tip of the tongue, things that made the part of Holster that used to be a theater kid ache a little bit), ran his hands through his floppy hair, and smiled brightly at the camera.</p><p class="p1">“Hey, y’all! Are you ready for college baking, part three? Lord, you would not believe how much hot sauce and coffee college boys will buy at Costco. Here’s how you can use some sriracha and espresso to make some surprisingly delicious brownies. I know, I know, they sound like the strangest things you could put together with chocolate, but what did y’all learn after the Great Jam series of 2012? It makes a really complex flavor profile that will knock your socks clean off and into the washer. You have to trust me.”</p><p class="p1">It did sound kinda gross to Holster, but honestly, he probably would’ve tried it if he could’ve. All the guys were constantly raving about every single thing this guy baked, to the point where he’d seriously asked Mandy if there was literally any chance that ghosts could taste food.</p><p class="p1">“I’m sorry, bud,” she had said. “It’s just this, all the time. Barely touching, no smelling or tasting. We’re lucky we get sight and sound.”</p><p class="p1">More importantly though, was that this kid was exactly what Holster needed right now: a nosy person who can get answers. He floated up through to the attic, where Mandy was lounging on the upper bunk watching Justin study. When everyone else in the Haus was quiet, he was still interesting to watch. The focus he had was like nothing Holster had ever seen, even at a place as competitive academically as Samwell.</p><p class="p1">“He’s literally only moved his eyes and the hand he’s using to flip pages and write for four hours,” she said. “This kid is majorly intense.”</p><p class="p1">“I wish the other guys would help him chill out,” Holster said, frowning. “But anyways. I got info on how I died through the magic of eavesdropping. Hockey accident. On ice, apparently, not like a car crash on the way to a game or something.”</p><p class="p1">“Rough,” Mandy said. “But at least you know, right?”</p><p class="p1">“It’s something,” he said. “Still sucks.”</p><p class="p1">She floated over and pulled him into a hug. It was a small comfort, that they could interact with each other here. Sometimes he thought about the 20 years between Mandy’s death and his, when she had nobody to hug at all. He was lucky, comparatively. He sniffed, tears welling up in his eyes.</p><p class="p1">Justin jumped.</p><p class="p1">“What the fuck was that,” he hissed, looking around. “Ghosts aren’t real, they just aren’t. Is this some kind of hazing?”</p><p class="p1">He raised his voice slightly. “If there’s a speaker in here for some dumb prank, I swear I will sell it to the lacrosse team for beer money and not share the beer and I won’t even feel bad about it. I already did your bullshit hazing on the ice in the middle of the night, I don’t need any more.”</p><p class="p1">“He’s so sensitive to us,” Mandy said. “But like he didn’t seem to hear me when I said that all he needed to know for his bio exam was that mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell, and that was a hilarious joke.”</p><p class="p1">“He psychically knows about my crush,” Holster joked. “And our awesome couple nickname that we’ll never get to use.”</p><p class="p1">Mandy pursed her lips.</p><p class="p1">“You can’t get too attached.”</p><p class="p1">“I won’t.”</p><p class="p1">“You seem like the type who has to make the mistakes to actually learn. But I don’t want to see you hurt yourself that way.”</p><p class="p1">Holster shook his head. “I promise. It’s all jokes.” (It was not, in fact, all jokes).</p><p class="p1">“C’mon. I want your help in leaving a message for Zimmermann,” he said, deflecting. “He’s being too much of an asshole to the other newbie, I want to leave some cryptic messages that make him reconsider his ways.”</p><p class="p1">“I’m not going to be a Ghost of Christmas Past for you,” Mandy said.</p><p class="p1">“Please? For the sake of the poor little freshman? He’s on the verge of quitting hockey,” Holster pleaded. “Hockey is too good to be ruined by Jack.” Mandy rolled her eyes, then headed toward the stairs.</p><p class="p1">Holster flipped through a few pages of Zimmermann’s diary. Not strong enough to open the book or pick it up yet, but Mandy helped him with that and then let him do the pages. He couldn’t read the French, but he could tell that it was about half prose, half hockey diagrams. It was a fresh journal for the new year, so it didn’t take him too long to get to a blank page.</p><p class="p1">“Okay, what are we saying?” Mandy asked, picking up a pen.</p><p class="p1">“Something about team morale being important for success,” Holster directed.</p><p class="p1">MORALE— OVERLOOKED KEY ELEMENT? NEED BETTER MORALE THAN HARVARD AT LEAST Mandy wrote in all caps.</p><p class="p1">“Perfect. He fucking hates Harvard, the competition might be what he needs to actually stop being a total dick.” </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Boo!</p><p>You may have noticed that both Ransom and Bitty have rooms in the Haus as freshmen. This is because they wouldn't interact as much with Ghost Holster if they were in the dorms, and I can do what I want when I write.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>A little more backstory, a little more of Holster complaining about the nickname situation (has he complained a lot already? Yes, but look me in the eyes and tell me that Holster can let things go in less than one calendar year), a little more angst about how much you lose out on when you're a ghost.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">“Brah, we seriously need to get you a nickname. Like literally any fuckin’ nickname is better than calling you Justin all the time,” Shitty said, shoving two pieces of Domino’s pizza into his mouth at once. “Jack has the monopoly on being nicknameless on this team, you can’t take over his brand.”</p><p class="p1">“Shitty, please, if I wasn’t a ghost we could be Ransom and Holster,” Holster said. It felt achingly close to being real, but the little things added up to make it impossible to pretend to be alive. The chair he was sitting in was pushed in all the way, so his torso was cut in half by the table. The pizza, steaming and inches away, didn’t smell like anything. Ghosts don’t get real smells. He thought he smelled disinfectant sometimes, or coffee, but it was never real. And, of course, nobody heard his awesome nickname idea. They were coming up with bad, not-cool nicknames instead and Holster could just scream with how much he wanted to not be a fucking ghost. He was upset that he couldn’t smell Domino’s. <em>It wasn’t even good pizza</em>. And if he wasn’t dead, he’d be able to have even a slightly less hopeless crush. At least if he wasn’t dead he could be coming up with bullshit reasons to not go out with Justin instead of coming up with cute couple nicknames they could’ve had in another life.</p><p class="p1">“Dude. You’ve got it so bad,” Mandy said. Holster put his face in his hands and screamed.</p><p class="p1">“What the fuck was that?” Justin said, jumping up.</p><p class="p1">“I didn’t hear anything,” Shitty said slowly.</p><p class="p1">“It was a scream,” Justin insisted. “Just— I don’t know what direction it was from.”</p><p class="p1">“Probably something from the lacrosse assholes,” Shitty said. “They like to fuck around like that.”</p><p class="p1">“Oh my god,” Mandy said.</p><p class="p1">“He heard me,” Holster whispered. “Fuck. Maybe he is psychic. It can’t be a fluke at this point.”</p><p class="p1">Justin’s eyes were wide as he looked around.</p><p class="p1">“Did you seriously not hear anything?” he demanded. Shitty shrugged.</p><p class="p1">“The guy who had your room last year said he thought there were ghosts here,” he said with a wink. Justin shivered. Holster shot Mandy a half-apologetic smile.</p><p class="p1">“What can I say, you moved my notebooks around all the time.”</p><p class="p1">“You had a terrible organizational system. I was helping you.”</p><p class="p1">“Ghosts aren’t real,” Justin said, though he didn’t sound certain. “Did that guy drop out or something? He didn’t clear out like half his desk.”</p><p class="p1">Shitty’s face dropped.</p><p class="p1">“It’s. It’s a sensitive subject,” he said slowly. “There was… there was an accident. On the ice. We were playing Notre Dame in a tournament, and those Midwestern motherfuckers are big and they play dirty. I got up with a broken arm, but Birker… Birker didn’t get back up.”</p><p class="p1">“I hate that fucking nickname,” Holster muttered. “No creativity.”</p><p class="p1">“Fuck, man, I’m sorry,” Justin said.</p><p class="p1">“One of those things where it’s nobody’s fault, but we all feel like it’s our fault, you know?” Shitty said. He sniffed, loudly, and looked up at the ceiling to blink back some tears. Holster was, honestly, a little surprised. He had been kind of weak when he first became a ghost, and couldn’t really leave the attic until the middle of summer, so he hadn’t seen the team’s reaction at all. Mandy said the attic was where most of his energy was stored in the Haus while he was living. He wasn’t sure if there was, like, a funeral celebration or anything for him at the Haus.</p><p class="p1">He’d been a part of the team, yeah, but he was only a freshman when he died. It would make sense if the upperclassmen weren’t that attached, right? And it wasn’t like he hung out with them outside of practice and being in the Haus. He kind of kept to himself in the attic a lot of the time. It was easier. He didn’t have to worry about being too loud or too opinionated or too <em>much</em> if he was studying all the time. After the Settlers of Catan Incident, he was even more certain that he was just there to be on the team on the ice, not all the time. He didn’t fit in. Besides, everyone else seemed to split off into units. Shitty, Jack, and Lardo were a unit. Ollie and Wicks were a unit. Holster was just solo. Not a part of anything besides the larger picture.</p><p class="p1">But here Shitty was, crying about him.</p><p class="p1">“You would’ve liked him,” Shitty said suddenly. “I think he would’ve come out of his shell a little more if he’d had more time with us. Freshman year sucks for everyone. He would’ve felt more at home here as a sophomore. You and Bits and him, I think you would all really get along great if he wasn’t— if he was still with us.”</p><p class="p1">“I am here,” Holster whispered. “You just don’t know it.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Up next: the first kegster of the school year!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. First Kegster of the Year</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Holster gets upset at being unable to interact with the Kegster. Ransom has his hookup ruined by a fear of ghosts.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">Justin was drunk at his first kegster, a few tub juices too many already making his feet unsteady.On top of the booze, the atmosphere was intoxicating. All the normal lights had been switched out for repurposed Christmas lights or colored lamps, transforming a boring, kind of dirty frat house into the kind of club that movies tried to capture. The Haus was packed with people, most of whom he’d never met before, and he was determined to friend half of them on Facebook by the end of the night. For future party planning purposes. It didn’t smell great, with the smells of spilled beer and sweaty people mixing together, but Drunk Justin didn’t mind as much as Sober Justin would have.</p><p class="p1">Adam was trying to get through his first kegster as a ghost. He’d turned down Mandy’s offer to just stay in the attic and play Uno. It was one of those situations where you have to rip off the bandaid, even if you’ve got sensitive skin that can bleed if you do that too hard. It was painful in ways that Adam hadn’t expected.</p><p class="p1">It was like trying to make a joke in a room where everyone else already knows each other, knows the pauses and breaks that everyone else in the room needs to speak, where they leave no room for the outsiders. Constantly hearing inside jokes from the outside, never explained. The keen awareness that, were this a movie instead of real life, your character would be Partygoer #5, not given the dignity of a name.</p><p class="p1">He couldn’t feel anything. At all. Kegsters were supposed to be basically all about sensations. Feeling the heat of everyone’s bodies crammed together, contrasted with the cool brush of air from an open window. The feeling of your shirt slowly growing sweatier and sweatier, sticking to your skin more firmly as you dance harder. The burn of your calves from bouncing up and down too fast, because there are way too many people in there to do any kind of dancing besides jumping. The burning sweetness of a glass of tub juice, chugged after a game of beer pong while the roar of the conversation blurs into a roar.</p><p class="p1">He could see everything, clearly. Ghostly eyes don’t get blurry. He used to go to these things without his glasses or contacts, figuring that it would be bad to lose his glasses and that he definitely wouldn’t be able to safely take out his contacts drunk. But as a ghost, he could see everything even when he took off his glasses.</p><p class="p1">He could hear everything too clearly, too. Everything. He could hear each separate conversation happening in the Haus, from Blond Freshman arguing with Shitty over whether Shitty should be able to take ten cookies at once to Lardo quietly telling Jack that if he needed to take an anxiety breather, he should just flash a quick hand gesture at her, and she’d make any necessary excuses.</p><p class="p1">So he could hear and see everything that was going on with Justin and one of the girls from the volleyball team.</p><p class="p1">They were making out, her hands on his ass and his hands on her boobs, and in between French kisses with way too much tongue they were discussing whether or not it would be a totally great idea for Justin to take her upstairs to his room.</p><p class="p1">Holster wanted to scream with jealousy.</p><p class="p1">It was just so unfair. He couldn’t stay alive to meet this guy, who probably would’ve been on the same line as him and who he would’ve had crazy intense chemistry with. He’d lost every feeling as a ghost except the pain in his chest as he watched the volleyball girl run her hands over Justin’s strong biceps. And he couldn’t even be fucking drunk and able to march over to one of the swim team guys for an unsatisfying hookup.</p><p class="p1">He wrenched himself away, spinning around and heading automatically for the stairs. Fuck. Couldn’t even stomp on the fucking stairs, not without using up all the energy he had to influence the physical world. He floated up to the attic, and before Mandy had a chance to say anything, he threw himself onto the bed and screamed into the pillow.</p><p class="p1">There was one benefit to losing all the physical sensations. His vocal cords didn’t hurt. He didn’t run out of air for screaming, and only stopped when he felt like it.</p><p class="p1">“Dude.” Mandy looked genuinely concerned. “What the fuck was that?”</p><p class="p1">“Justin—” Holster started to say, before a sob escaped.</p><p class="p1">“Oh, honey,” Mandy said, floating over to him. “I’m sorry.”</p><p class="p1">“I just. I hate it,” Holster said. “I want so much that I can’t have, but I could’ve had it.”</p><p class="p1">The attic door opened.</p><p class="p1">Justin.</p><p class="p1">And the volleyball girl.</p><p class="p1">“I’m going down to the kitchen,” Holster said as the girl started to pull up Justin’s shirt over his perfect abs. “I hate myself, but not this much.” Mandy nodded. Justin kept walking backwards toward the bed, starting to undo the buttons on volleyball girl’s shirt.</p><p class="p1">“Like, it’s just insult on top of injury that this was my bed,” Holster whined as soon as they hit the first floor. “Like. The hot guy is in my bed but it’s not my bed anymore.”</p><p class="p1">In the room upstairs, Ransom fumbled with volleyball girl’s bra clasp.</p><p class="p1">“It’s like eighty degrees outside, how is your room so cold?” volleyball girl said, stopping suddenly. Her eyes widened. “Is this the haunted frat?”</p><p class="p1">“No no no,” Justin said. “It’s not a frat. And it’s not haunted. Ghosts aren’t real.”</p><p class="p1">“Oh my god, it totally is,” volleyball girl said. “My captain’s in Alpha Theta Alpha and she told us, this girl was totally trampled during a party and now she gets revenge on anyone who parties in the house.”</p><p class="p1">She looked around nervously.</p><p class="p1">“I’m sorry, I can’t have sex if there’s a ghost watching me,” she said suddenly, dead serious. “We could go back to my dorm? It’s kind of a walk but I’ve got a single, too.”</p><p class="p1">Mandy nodded at everything Holster said as they walked to the kitchen. This was the emotional equivalent of holding your friend’s hair back while she pukes. Blond Freshman was asleep on the table, cradling a pie in his arms and softly snoring. They didn’t say anything, opting instead for communicating strictly via raised eyebrows and contorted facial expressions. A minute later, volleyball girl stomped down the stairs and slammed the front door so hard that the hinges rattled.</p><p class="p1">Justin stormed in a few minutes later, looking pissed off.</p><p class="p1">“Bitty, where’s the pie?” he demanded, not noticing that his friend was totally passed out. “Fucking ghosts. Fucking people who believe in ghosts. Does anyone know an exorcist?”</p><p class="p1">Holster and Mandy exchanged a glance.</p><p class="p1">“I didn’t do anything,” Holster said quickly. “I can barely pick up a pen, you’ve seen me try.”</p><p class="p1">“I’m not blaming you,” Mandy said. “I just don’t want to get exorcised because your sorry ass got too jealous of the living.”</p><p class="p1">“I’ll get my emotions under control. I swear. I’m just really, really missing being alive tonight.” Holster looked longingly at the Tub Juice, which was a color reminiscent of either yellow gatorade or radioactive sludge. Mandy’s glare softened.</p><p class="p1">“I’ve been there. Hey, how about we go to the basement and just trade some drinking stories? I can tell you about the time I managed to drink like twenty shots of tequila in a row. Without barfing.”</p><p class="p1">The ghosts descended to the basement, where the noise and energy of the kegster was dimmed. Justin stayed at the table, glaring into his pie.</p><p class="p1">“Fucking ghosts,” he said with his mouth full. Bitty kept snoring. </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Holster eavesdrops on another one of Bitty's vlogs.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>A short chapter!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">Eric’s vlogs were honestly addicting to watch at this point. Literally nobody else on the team was a good source for any information, or, this close to midterms, entertainment. He gave a pretty full, if biased, recap of almost every game, and managed to talk about recipes in a way that made Holster want to be able to cook. When he was alive, he basically only cooked for special occasions, but the way Eric presented it, it could be easy.</p><p class="p1">(He’d figured out Eric’s name from reading over his shoulder while he started writing an essay. Still had no idea what the nickname was. Butty? Birdy?)</p><p class="p1">“Y’all, we need to talk about Samwell sports culture,” he said to the camera. “On the one hand, when they said ‘one in four, maybe more,’ they weren’t kidding. On the other hand, I’m over it. All of these boys are terrible.”</p><p class="p1">“I’ll cheers to that, bro,” Holster said. Bitty might not be able to hear him, but it felt like they were talking to each other during the vlogs.</p><p class="p1">“Apparently we’re banned from even flirting with anyone on the lacrosse team, so there goes a chunk of the dating pool. The swim team guys are all dating each other because they’ve apparently, every single one of them, got a thing for pecs,” he said, rolling his eyes. Holster flashed back for a second to one of his worse hookups last year. The guy, a wannabe Michael Phelps, had started giving him tips on how to increase his muscle density. Not before sex, not after sex, literally during.</p><p class="p1">“Avoid them harder than you’d avoid the lax bros,” he said. He would’ve been so good at mentoring freshmen if they could hear him. “They’re all hot, but they’re not worth it.”</p><p class="p1">“All the straight guys are going for the volleyball girls, because I guess all the soccer girls and rugby girls are dating each other? That’s my theory, anyways. So that leaves the soccer guys, but if you ask me, most of them have taken a few too many headers. So hot, so dumb. I mean, dumb for Samwell is still pretty smart, but one of them asked me if I knew how to make grits. Book smart, maybe, sports smart, maybe, but so dumb in the world of romance,” he sighed. “Not that any of them give a shit about romance, everyone just hooks up and texts each other for a week and a half and then ghosts. So I’m giving up on dating, basically forever, and I’m gonna die alone with nobody to appreciate how good my ass is looking thanks to all the squats Justin and I are doing.”</p><p class="p1">It was a little dramatic but, as someone who had recently died alone, Holster understood the despair. The dating scene at Samwell sucked. It didn’t help that half the couples that were clearly meant to be just wouldn’t get together. If Holster had a dollar for every time he’d heard Shitty or Lardo tell someone that they were just friends and didn’t want to be more, he’d have enough money for a few pairs of new skates.</p><p class="p1">“I guess technically I could see if anyone on the hockey team, you know, swung that way,” Eric said slowly. “But I’m not… I’m not ready to tell them.”</p><p class="p1">Holster’s heart broke, just a little bit. He should’ve been there, alive, to make sure all the freshmen knew it would be a safe zone. He should’ve been more out while he had the chance instead of sneaking his hookups up to the attic. There were so, so many things he should’ve done.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Okay, was there much plot in this one? No, but I liked it so I'm posting. This is fanfiction, I'm allowed to be self-indulgent and just post what I want to post. The next chapter, though, we're switching to Ransom's POV and we do have some plot.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Justin's POV</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The ghosts begin interacting with Justin. Or he's hallucinating. Kind of hard for him to tell.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">Justin took off his headphones and looked around. Nothing. Nobody there.</p><p class="p1">“Fucking drafts in this shitty attic,” he muttered, standing up from his desk chair and stomping over to pick up the chemistry book that had fallen from its secure place on top of his dresser. “Fucking dumb hockey dudes and their obsession with ghosts making me all freaked out,” he added. He froze as he looked down at his desk.</p><p class="p1">On his sticky note pad, there was writing. He had a system, and that system meant that he took each note off the stack before he wrote anything on a sticky note so that the pressure of the pen wouldn’t indent the sticky notes underneath and make them more difficult to write on. But there was writing, black on the hot pink paper.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Good luck on your test :p don’t get too stressed! :D &lt;3</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">“What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck,” he muttered as a mantra. He ripped the note off the top of the stack. Nobody else could’ve snuck in while his back was turned.</p><p class="p1">He did what any logical person in the 21<span class="s1"><sup>st</sup></span> century would do. He opened up the internet on his phone and googled “sticky notes I didn’t write on appearing help.”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">“Shitty, can you drive me to the hardware store? I think I need a carbon monoxide detector for the attic,” Ransom asked. Shitty nodded through an enormous bite of Bitty’s latest cookie recipe.</p><p class="p1">“Sure, brah, Lards wanted me to steal her some of those little sample paint color papers for her next installment piece. You think you got carbon monoxide poisoning?”</p><p class="p1">“I want to make sure I don’t,” Justin said, dodging the question. It seemed unlikely, with the great, some would say excessive, ventilation the attic had by way of drafts and warped window frames. But it was the only logical explanation he’d landed on so far. He wasn’t sleeping great, sure, but the mild insomnia wouldn’t explain the level of confusion needed to forget writing himself a motivational sticky note. With excessive handwritten emojis. In a totally different style from how he normally wrote.</p><p class="p1">“Yeah, this place is definitely not totes up to code,” Shitty said, snapping him out of his reverie. “I need you to wear something with a lot of pockets, you’ll need to take a whole bunch of the paint cards, too. It’s gonna be a fucking huge installation.”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">The carbon monoxide levels in the attic were totally, completely, utterly safe and normal. Justin could’ve screamed in frustration. That should’ve explained it all, right? But no. The most likely explanation was totally off the table because the stupid evidence disproved it. He sat down at the desk and pulled out his journal, the nice one, a Moleskine with his name on the front.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Possibilities for the Handwritten Note Mystery</p><p class="p1">1. Carbon Monoxide poisoning. Disproven. Levels in the attic are safe and normal. Not a hallucination from CO.</p><p class="p1">2. Some other kind of delusion or hallucination. Unlikely but possible. Stress can cause certain psychological issues to appear, but anxiety didn’t make you forget writing a sticky note, or forget someone else coming into your room and writing a note while your back is turned for twenty seconds, maximum.</p><p class="p1">3. Ghosts. Ghosts aren’t real. But there are a lot of stories about ghosts living in the Haus. Not living, exactly. Occupying. Why would a ghost spend their eternity haunting somewhere as rank as the Haus? Perhaps delusion from repeated stories? Lucid dreaming?</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Justin tapped his pen angrily against the top of the journal. It didn’t make sense. One more thought occurred to him.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">4. Someone on the team had written it on the second or third note of the stack, and the message had only been revealed after removing the top notes. Being too focused on studying, it would be easy to miss it at first.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">This made a lot of sense, actually. Justin felt kind of silly for freaking out over carbon monoxide at first, instead of thinking it out. And ugh, ghosts made the list before “harmless prank from teammate?” He almost wanted to tear out the page in his journal. He wouldn’t, of course, but the temptation was there.</p><p class="p1">“Don’t bring that energy to med school,” he muttered to himself. “Dumb as hell.”</p><p class="p1">He closed the notebook and stretched. He had three minutes before his scheduled half-hour bio review, so he pulled out his phone and looked at Instagram for a minute, liking the pictures of people from high school that he didn’t really care about anymore and lingering on the pics from the hotter people in his major. When he finally looked up, he almost screamed.</p><p class="p1">The sticky note pad had a new note.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Don’t call yourself dumb :( you’re so smart! You’re gonna ace this test :D</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Fuck. He was going to have to go back to ghosts as a possibility.</p><p class="p1">Very nice, very motivational ghosts. But still. Something that there was absolutely no scientific evidence for. Except maybe the sticky notes he had, now stuck inside the cover of his journal.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">“Hey ghosts? If you’re here, could you stop cock-blocking me? Thanks,” Justin said, feeling delusional.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">We promise that wasn’t us, we were in the kitchen when your gf left</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">“She wasn’t my girlfriend. We were just friends with benefits,” Justin said. He was arguing with a post-it note.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Whatever.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">The post-it was arguing back. Justin took several deep breaths. Maybe he just needed to go back to meditation.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">If she wasn’t your girlfriend why are you acting like it was a huge breakup?</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">“Okay. Okay, that’s enough of that,” he said, snatching the post-it pad and the pen and shoving them into his desk drawer. He slammed it shut. “I’m not talking about that with you. Oh my god, why am I still talking, ghosts aren’t real.”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Inside the drawer, the pen, at an awkward angle, hitting the top of the desk, wrote: excuse you we are totally real.</p><p class="p1"> </p><p class="p1"> </p><p class="p1">“Thanks, Mandy,” Holster said later that night, when Justin was loudly snoring and the rest of the Haus was nearly silent. “I hope I can get to the point where I’m strong enough to write with a pen.”</p><p class="p1">“You totally will,” she reassured him. “But in the meantime, I’m here to help you mess with the team as much as we want to.”She’d been a good sport about the idea of leaving Justin a motivational sticky note or ten, taking Holster’s suggestions of where to add in emoticons. Something felt off, though. It wasn’t that Holster wanted to mess with Justin that made him suggest it. It was something more.</p><p class="p1">He wanted to exist, just a little, in Justin’s world. As he was here and now, not as the memory of a guy who took a bad hit and made Jack even more of a control freak on the ice, made Shitty even more overly invested in making sure freshmen were emotionally adjusting to the challenges of collegiate life, and prompted Lardo to do a whole series on memento mori, the concept of art reminding you that you will die. At least Holster hoped he was the inspiration. It was really cool art, actually. Lots of skulls that didn’t look like skulls at first, until you looked at them just right. It would be a great way to be memorialized, actually.</p><p class="p1">The notes felt like he was taking a stand. Insisting on being seen, even if he was being seen as a nuisance. It was, more than anything in his ghosthood so far, actually fun. He wanted to say that it was because it was a great way to be silly with Mandy, but that was a lie. Death wouldn’t let him get close to Justin, but this would have to do.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Next up we have more info via Bitty's vlog!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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